Two Westmont voice instructors, tenor Chad Ruyle, and soprano Nichole Dechaine, will team up with collaborative pianist Neil Di Maggio for a recital, “A Song Celebration,” 4 p.m. Saturday, March 23, in Deane Chapel on Westmont College’s lower campus. The performance is free and open to the public.
Ruyle and Dechaine and Di Maggio will perform:
“At the River,” “Long Time Ago,” and “Zion’s Walls” from “Old American Songs” by Aaron Copland (1900-90); “Cry No More” by Dan Forrest (1978 – ); “The Year’s at the Spring” by Amy Beach (1867-1944); “Ouvre tes yeux bleues” and “Que l’heure est donc brève” by Jules Massenet (1842-1912); “Vainement, ma bien-aimeée” from “Le Roi D’Ys” by Édouard Lalo (1823-92); “Nuit d’étoiles” by Claude Debussy (1862-1918); “Mandoline” by Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924); “Anhelo” by Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000); “Qué Pronto” by Manuel Ponce (1882-1948); “Waldeinsamkeit” by Max Reger 1873-1916); “Liebst du um Schönheit” from “Rückert-Lieder” by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911); “Liebst du um Schönheit” by Clara Schumann (1819-96); “Nothing More Than This” from “Candide” by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990); “Lascia ch’io pianga” from “Rinaldo” by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759); “O mio babbino caro” from “Gianni Schicchi” by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924); “No puede ser” from “La tabernera del puerto” by Pablo Sorozábal (1897-1988); and “One Hand, One Heart” from “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein.
This is quite a program, well nigh flawless in its taste, immense in its range. Some random observations must suffice in the face of such richness.
The two sets of “Old American Songs” are among the loveliest of the composer’s exercises in “Americana,” even though he did not actually write any of them.
Yet, he can rightfully claim them, since his brilliant arrangements and orchestrations have restored these songs from obscurity to places of honor in the American Song Book.
An exception is “Gather at the River,” which has been featured in several John Ford films, and many other movies with scenes that try to touch base with our evangelical past.
As you might expect of a graduate of Bob Jones University, sacred music dominates Dan Forrest’s catalogue, although his concert works are very fine as well. His religious works, however, exhibit none of the sterile, tuneless piety of someone like John Rutter. “Cry no more,” a hymn, is quite romantic in its soundscape.
The German poet, essayist, and translator Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866), who spoke more 30 languages, was quite a favorite lyric source for German composers. Wikipedia estimates that “there are about 121 settings of his work – making him the fourth most-set German poet, behind Goethe, Heine and Rilke.”
Other composers who set his poetry to music include Schubert, Robert Schumann, Brahms Josef Rheinberger, Max Bruch, Max Reger, and Elise Schmezer.
Mahler set 10 of his songs, five of them in “Kindertotenlieder.” “Liebst du um Schönheit” was also set by Clara Schumann, and it is by no means inferior to Mahler’s. It is not even that different, allowing for some 60 years of musical evolution — which suggests, to me anyway, that some of the music was inherent in the words of the poem.
I’m delighted to see that Lenny Bernstein still finds a secure place in our concert programs: we can miss him and still have him with us.
For the rest, I must leave you to your own devices. After the concert, you can start looking up the composers that took your fancy.
As noted above, admission to this recital is free, and the public is invited. For more information, contact the music department, 805-565-6040.